


you think you deserve it (i won't stand and observe it)

by montygreenbean (bottomoftheocean)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Background Clexa, Background Marper, Bullying, Clurphy brotp, F/M, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, I'm not sorry, Pining Murphy, a tiny bit of flarke, finn's a giant dick tho as usual, honestly i just wrote this bc i needed murphy to feel the love ok, murphy is adopted by the griffins, raven is murphy's badass guardian angel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 18:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19431523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bottomoftheocean/pseuds/montygreenbean
Summary: John Murphy grew up moving in and out of foster homes. When, at the age of ten, he's taken in by the Griffin family in Arkadia, Maryland, he thinks things might finally be different, that he can finally start anew and not be known as the "weird foster kid" anymore.He's wrong, at first. But two years later, the Griffins adopt him, and he meets Raven Reyes. That's when his life finally starts to take a turn for the better.(told over six years' time)





	you think you deserve it (i won't stand and observe it)

**Author's Note:**

> hello, friends! long time no see. i know it's been a bit since i've posted, but last semester was super busy for me and then when summer came (i now have literally all the free time in the world and am so bored, oof) i just had no inspiration for the longest time.  
> however, i've had this prompt sort of stowed away in a google document for literal ages, and after last week's episode (and honestly the whole of this season, i won't lie), i just really needed some quality everyone-loves-murphy fic. and thus, this dear one shot was born!  
> it's not as much tooth rotting fluff as i originally wanted, but honestly, this is more true to character. it certainly has its moments.
> 
> anyway, as always, all characters belong to kass morgan and the cw! it's a privilege to get to write them <3
> 
> /
> 
> prompt;  
> “you probably don’t remember but you saved me from some bullies once in middle school and god damn it every year you just get hotter”
> 
> title adapted from "i saw it" by the barenaked ladies
> 
> also, this is unedited and it is 4am so i am v sorry for any errors -- i'll fix them if i find them i promise!

**six years ago - sixth grade**

Ten-year-old John Murphy had thought, perhaps naively, that being put into a new foster home and having to move to the town of Arkadia, Maryland, meant he could go to school and start fresh. His foster sister, Clarke, was pretty popular from what he could tell by the amount of time she spent texting, so he’d even thought that she could maybe help him make some friends for once in his life. But no, instead she ignored and sometimes even watched when some of her friends would bully him. He was yet again the outcast, the “weird foster kid,” the title always imposed upon him no matter where he ended up.

The Griffins had, however, liked having Murphy around enough that they bought him an entire new wardrobe to fill up the absolutely massive closet in his room, and basically anything his heart could possibly have desired (and then some). And then they adopted him on top of it all, two years later. So, going into his sixth grade year, he felt a sense of belonging he’d never once felt before in his life. It gave him more confidence than he’d known it was possible to have, which led to him taking a few style risks (Jake had even helped him slather blue dye through his hair when he asked, and they’d taken him shopping for more new clothes without even a second thought). 

On the first day of school, Clarke even walked into the building with him, something she’d never done before. It felt almost too promising, even to a twelve-year-old. And right he was. It only took two hours for the bullies to start calling him “Smurphy” and finding anything new they could to taunt him about. It only took two hours for all that confidence to come crashing down around him. 

Murphy felt defeated. He had a _family_ now, he wasn’t the “weird foster kid” anymore. Why wouldn’t anyone leave him alone?

“Hey Smurf!” he heard from down the hall as he shoved his books into his backpack after school, followed by a cacophony of boys’ laughter. “Don’t leave yet, the fun’s just getting started!”

Murphy picked up the pace, slamming his locker shut just as he heard the group come up behind him. He tried to push by, but one of them pushed him into the lockers with a forearm and held him there. “Finn,” he said, “can’t you just leave me alone?”

The other boys laughed at his pitiful question, closing in and leaving Murphy absolutely no way of escape even if he had by chance been strong enough to get out of Finn’s grip. “Now where’s the fun in that?” Finn asked him. “You’re such an easy target.”

One of the other boys in the group, Atom, spoke over Finn’s shoulder. “You know, Smurphy, I can’t figure out why Clarke’s parents adopted you. It’s not like they really have any reason to care about you.”

At the mention of his adoptive family, Murphy found himself digging his fingernails into his palms with anger. “You don’t think I know they care about me more than they have any right to? You assholes make that pretty clear.” Atom laughed in his face. Murphy could smell his terrible breath and was in _just_ the right mood to comment on it. “By the way, Atom? Might wanna get that bad breath checked out. Not the best way to get girls to like you.” 

Atom lunged around Finn, grabbing Murphy by both shoulders and slamming him once again into his locker. “Because you would know? Blue hair and chain necklaces are exactly what all the girls are into, right?”

Murphy decided to press his luck a little more. If these boys were never going to stop teasing him, he at least deserved to prick at them a little in return. “Maybe not, but I know if I were them, it’d be more interesting than whatever you’ve got going on,” he said. 

The hands at his shoulders became an arm pressing against his throat. Murphy suddenly felt maybe he’d pushed a little too far after all and could end up hurt. _“At least Clarke’s mom is a doctor,”_ he thought briefly before Atom’s other arm came up and punched him in the stomach. 

He was too busy collapsing to the floor to pay much attention to what was happening around him after that, but he faintly heard a girl’s voice saying, “Excuse me, can I get to my lo–– what the hell are you doing to him?” and then felt a hand come to rest at his waist. He flinched away, looking up to see an unfamiliar girl staring down at him with a fire behind her brown eyes.

The boys around him had mostly dispersed, leaving only Finn and Atom and one other guy, Cage. The girl spoke again. “Why the hell did you punch him like that?” she demanded of Atom.

Finn answered instead. “He deserved it!”

“Oh, and did he deserve the multiple kicks you three were about to deliver him too?”

“He was saying all kinds of mean stuff about Atom. He deserved it.” Finn’s indignant tone had Murphy rolling his eyes, even through his pain.

“That was after you told me my family doesn’t care about me, if I remember correctly,” he said, strained.

The girl looked shocked. Her hand returned to Murphy’s waist, rubbing soothing circles there. He didn’t flinch away this time. “Listen,” she said, “maybe it’s just because I’m new here, and maybe I’m upsetting whatever weird balance this school has, but something tells me that this is just not right. So how about this: you three leave him the fuck alone from now on, or you deal with me. And I’ve had martial arts training for the past five years.” It was a threat, and all three boys knew it. They backed away quickly towards the front door. The girl watched them go before turning back to Murphy.

“Thanks,” he said. “Might’ve just saved my life there, you know.”

“Are you okay?” she asked, tucking her short brown hair behind her ear. “That had to have been a pretty hard hit, the way you just fell to the ground like that.”

“I’ll be fine,” Murphy insisted. He tried to sit upright, but struggled. She lifted him by the shoulder to assist. “They’ve done worse damage with words than that punch ever could’ve.”

“Are you sure? My uncle is coming to pick me up any minute, I could see if he would take you home?”

He spared a moment before replying to just take her in, the girl who had just saved him from who knows what kind of a beating. Her deep brown eyes showed nothing but genuine concern for him, a complete stranger, and the slight pout on her lips as she waited for his response made her glittery lip gloss catch the awful fluorescent lighting and glint slightly. She was pretty, he thought absently, which then of course made it harder to answer the question.

“I’m fine,” he repeated, somewhat dumbly. “I have to wait here for my…” he paused, fumbling over the foreign word, “sister, to be done talking to all her friends before she’ll even call to be picked up.”

“Okay, well I guess I’ll leave you to it,” she said, rising to her feet and holding out a hand to help him up. He took it gratefully. “I’m Raven, by the way. Just moved in with my uncle Sinclair a few weeks ago, so I’m new to Arkadia.”

“Murphy,” Murphy replied, “John Murphy. And uh. Thanks again, for having my back and maybe actually getting those assholes to stop messing with me.”

Raven smiled. “Not a problem, Murphy. It was nice to meet you, even if the situation wasn’t… ideal.” And with that, she opened her locker, retrieved her backpack, and left him standing there staring after her.

\- - - 

**three years ago - ninth grade**

When Clarke started dating Finn halfway through their freshman year, Murphy couldn’t possibly have been surprised. She’d always sat aside and let them bully him, just twirling her hair around her finger and waiting for Finn to come talk to her. Even though the boys hadn’t outright confronted him since the day he’d first met Raven--none of them would dare, since their lockers were only two apart from one another and thus she and her brown belt were always nearby--Murphy was still wary of him and his friends, and still very aware of the snide comments that Cage especially found it necessary to mutter to him whenever he got close enough.

Murphy and Clarke still hadn’t gotten very close since he’d become a member of the family, but she wouldn’t actively avoid him anymore and would occasionally even talk to him at school. Her relationship with Finn put a damper on that almost immediately. He would shuffle off to his room as soon as they got home, especially if he knew Clarke was having Finn over to hang out, unwilling to sit through that torture. He barely even got the chance to speak to his parents except for at the dinner table, because avoiding Finn was more important.

There was one day he slipped up, though. One day he wasn’t aware Finn was coming over, and he was in desperate need of a glass of water. So he padded into the kitchen to get one, but as he poured it, he felt someone come up behind him. “Hm, come out to play have you? And look at that, Karate Girl isn’t anywhere around to try to protect you.”

“Hi, Finn,” Murphy said, turning to face the other boy. “I suppose your plan is to kill me in my own kitchen now that Raven’s not here to kick your ass? Well, I suppose I should let it be known that I fully believe that she will do so anyway after she learns of my demise.”

“The only reason I leave you alone at school is because I don’t wanna have to fight a girl. That would certainly not look good.”

“Right, because you could totally beat a brown belt in a fight.”

Finn took a momentary pause, but recovered with a smirk. “Well, you can tell your ‘brown belt’ to come wipe you up off the floor when I’m done here, then. I’m sure she’s had good practice. ‘Wax on, wax off’ and all that.”

“Is your only knowledge of karate from _The Karate Kid_?” Murphy asked, genuinely incredulous. “She could wipe the floor and use you as the damn mop if she had to, Finn. You already look like one, so that’s half the battle.”

Finn laughed. “You say that like the dead animal you call hair is better.”

Self-consciously, Murphy ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t even have a response at the ready, which only caused Finn to laugh more.

“What, no _witty_ comeback, Murph? At a loss for words? Maybe a cold shower will help.” And before Murphy could register those words, Finn reached behind him, grabbed the newly-filled water glass, and upturned it over Murphy’s head, just as his girlfriend came back into the room.

The way Clarke’s jaw dropped at the sight was enough for Murphy, but the way she laid into Finn really made his day. “Are you _seriously_ back to this, Finn? I let this slide in elementary school because we were _ten_ and I thought you’d grow out of it. But it’s been five years and here you are, still trying to torment Murphy! That’s my brother, Finn. You know that, right?”

“Of course I know that, baby, I was just… offering Murph here a little, uh, reminder, shall we say.” His words almost sounded convincing, and Murphy was actually scared for a split second that Clarke would side with her boyfriend.

“You told me you’d _changed,_ ” she said, sounding a bit desperate. “You said you were a nice guy now, that you wouldn’t treat people this way anymore. But here you are, in our _house,_ dumping water over Murphy’s head because you think it’s funny to tell him he looks like he has a dead animal on his head--yes, I heard that. Don’t try to deny it.”

“Oh, come on, Clarke, I was just joking around! Murph and I are pals, bros, you know.”

Murphy took this as his cue. “Never have we been, nor will we ever be, ‘bros,’ Finn. You know that, I know that, Clarke knows that. Get your head out of your ass. And _don’t_ call me Murph.”

“Come on, baby, don’t listen to him.”

“You know, Finn, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was all just the culmination of some elaborate, half-thought-out plan of yours to get under my skin. Do you even like her?” Murphy asked.

Clarke stepped forward, voice softer than before. “Do you?” she asked. “Did you only want to date me to get to him? Is that what you cared about?”

Finn sighed. “At first,” he said, but then quickly added, “But soon I got to see that you’re not only really beautiful, but also so great to be around. I could talk about basketball for hours and you wouldn’t even get bored, and we could just sit in silence and it would be okay. I love being with you, baby, I do.”

“Finn, if you don’t think I’m bored out of my mind every goddamn second you talk about sports, and if you don’t realize it makes me uncomfortable when we’re sitting there watching a movie and you just start touching my tits without saying a word, then you obviously have no knowledge of human decency. Now, if you could please leave my sight forever, that would be lovely. I have a puddle to clean up in my kitchen.”

“But baby, I love you!” Finn begged, making Murphy snort.

“You love her tits, Finn,” he said. “You love having a free pass to fuck with me. You don’t love her. Get out of our damn house.”

“Yeah? Fuck you, Murphy. This is your goddamn fault.” Finn slammed the glass down onto the counter and stormed out the door, almost directly into a bewildered Abby Griffin.

“What happened here?” she asked gingerly.

“Finn and I broke up. He’s, uh--excuse my language--a big fucking jerk, and my brother is way more important to me than he would have ever been,” Clarke said.

Murphy came around the kitchen island and to her side, hair still dripping water. “I don’t think he’ll be around anymore.”

“Okay then,” their mother said, blinking at Murphy’s wet clothes and hair. “I think I’m sorry I asked.” With that, she crossed to the stairs and left the room.

Clarke turned to him, an unreadable glint in her eye. “I’m sorry, Murphy. I should have known he’d try something if he ever got you alone here. I guess I just… believed he’d really changed.”

“You don’t have to apologize. That speech more than made up for it,” he replied with a smirk.

“At least it was only water? I’ll clean it up and get you a new glass.”

“Don’t bother. Just hug me.”

And that Clarke did. It was the first time they had ever hugged each other, Murphy noted, and he felt a bloom of hope that it was the first of many.

\- - -

**six months ago - twelfth grade**

When he and Clarke finally became friends, this meant that Murphy was, by extension, friends with all of her friends as well. This group included, he soon found out, none other than Raven Reyes. The two of them hadn’t really talked all that much since middle school, but their lockers had always been coincidentally close by one another all the way up through the years, so every now and again they’d share a short exchange. He would tell her about whatever weird new thing his father had thought he’d discovered or invented, and Raven would talk about her uncle Sinclair’s mechanic business as well as the theoretical probability of any of Jake’s inventions working out (almost always pretty slim--Raven didn’t have a lot of faith in him and she was usually right). 

Outside of that, they almost never saw one another and therefore never talked. But one thing remained constant throughout the six years they had known one another--Raven was really pretty, and ultimately it was very distracting for Murphy. He found himself anticipating and getting excited for each time he knew he would see her, and thinking about her way more than it made sense to think about someone he talked to maybe once every few weeks. And, yeah. It was really starting to be a problem now that Murphy was part of Clarke’s friend group.

He went from seeing Raven every few weeks to seeing her _every day._ They would talk at lunch, walk in between classes bantering back and forth, and of course still have conversations at their lockers whenever possible. He would find himself thinking idly about the way she laughed at some of the stupid things that came out of his mouth, and how she at least seemed to appreciate his sarcastic nature, if not enjoy it. He started daydreaming, even, something he _never_ thought he would do-- _“The sappiest shit ever. Shut up, Murphy,”_ he would tell himself every time he caught himself doing it. 

He felt so obvious about the way his eyes always seemed to find Raven in the group, no matter who was talking, and the way he couldn’t help but glare at her boyfriend, Zeke (or was it Miles? Shaw? Murphy could never figure it out for sure), at almost every opportunity. He certainly talked to her most besides Clarke. Murphy was certain that his sister, if not some of the others as well, had to know something was up… so why hadn’t she said anything?

He decided to address it himself--if she didn’t know about his grossly inconvenient crush already, she certainly would after he purposely brought it up.

“Griffin,” he said one day as he folded himself not-so-gracefully into Clarke’s tiny-ass car, “can I tell you something? And no, I do _not_ mean you can tell your girlfriend. This stays between us and us only. Got it?”

Clarke chuckled. “I won’t tell Lexa, Murphy. Don’t worry. That is,” she added, “unless this is gossip too juicy to keep to myself.”

Murphy glared at her, though he knew she was (probably) just joking with him. “I, uh, sort of might have a crush on one of your friends,” he said.

She gasped. “Who is it?”

“You seriously have no idea?"

“It’s not Luna, is it? She’s like. Not really into dating, you know.” 

“No, fuck, of course not. I like her alright, but she’s not really my type, you know?”

“Well, then who? I’m out of guesses,” Clarke demanded.

“Are you really gonna make me say it out loud? God, I thought you could tell. I thought this would be an easy conversation.”

Her only response was a pointed look, as though she would have been tapping her toes had they not been sitting in the car. Murphy groaned.

“Ugh, fine. Since you are obviously the most unobservant human this world has ever known, I will just tell you.” She smirked, knowing she’d won. “It’s, uh. Raven.”

Clarke let out an excited squeal that he, in the eight years he had been her sibling, had never once heard her utter. “God, I was so hoping you’d say that!”

“Why in the hell would you…?” he asked, bewildered. “She’s got a boyfriend, why would you wish this upon me?”

“Be _cause,_ Murphy! Her boyfriend is the most boring human I’ve ever met. He never has anything interesting to say and I’ve been needing to find a reason to convince her to break up with him for the last four months.”

Murphy rolled his eyes. “So, let me get this straight. You think that I, the token Skinny White Boy of this weird as fuck group, am the catalyst you need to convince Raven to end things with Three Names McGee?” Clarke nodded vigorously. “I don’t think you’ve got eyes _or_ a good judge of character if you think she’s breaking up with him for an asshole like me.”

As she pulled out of her parking spot, Clarke scoffed. “You’re an asshole because you choose to be an asshole. Miles or whatever the fuck he’s called is an asshole because he doesn’t know how to not be. Genuinely no one likes him. The only people besides Raven who even make an attempt with him are Harper and Monty and that’s only because they’re literal rays of goddamn sunshine.”

“This still doesn’t help your case.”

“Come _on,_ just think about it! You and Raven get along so well already. I’ve overheard some of your weird little locker talks about Dad’s shitty inventions. You two never run out of things to talk about. Even at lunch you guys sometimes just go off on tangents on your own while the rest of us talk about something completely different. Miles-Zeke-whatever just sits there in silence the whole time, brooding and holding her hand under the table.” Clarke was so enthusiastic that Murphy couldn’t help but consider her words. She was making a lot of sense, and saying things he’d never even considered.

“Do we really do that? At the lunch table, that happens a lot?” he ended up saying.

“All the time. Once a week at the _very_ least, you guys always argue about whatever TV show it is that only you guys like. No one else even pays attention anymore.”

Murphy pondered this for a few seconds. “You really think she might start to like me?” he asked as they stopped at a red light.

Clarke looked over at him with a knowing smile. “I think she already does and just doesn’t know it yet.”

/

This conversation with Clarke inspired Murphy to, the following Friday, approach Raven at her locker. “Hey listen,” he said, leaning up against the lockers beside her. “There’s, uh, there’s this show I’ve been meaning to watch, but Clarke says it’s definitely not one I should watch on my own because I’ve gotta have someone to, uh, ‘talk it through with.’ I figure we’ve got pretty similar taste, wanna check it out with me?”

Raven smirked. “This is so important that you couldn’t just text me about it?” she teased, raising an eyebrow.

“Television is one of the finest arts, Reyes. I thought you knew this.”

“Of course I do. It’s just unlike you to address it anywhere besides the lunch table,” she said.

Murphy knew this, had a feeling she would comment on it. “Can’t exactly watch four seasons of a television show in a twenty-five minute lunch period, now can we?”

“Fair enough,” Raven agreed. “Are we talking hour-long episodes, twenty-two a season?”

“Fifteen, give or take,” he replied. “We could totally do a season a weekend and get it done in a month.”

“Deal. Text me later and tell me more. I’ll be over at noon tomorrow and we can get this underway.” With that, she picked her backpack up off the floor and turned to leave, yelling “Bye, Murphy!” behind her as she went. 

_“Noon tomorrow?”_ he thought. _“Maybe Clarke was right after all, damn it.”_

/

Murphy awoke late the next morning and nearly shoved Clarke out of their shared bathroom in his haste to get ready. “Hey, what the hell?” she yelled, banging her fist on the door he’d just locked. “I was about to brush my teeth, you asshole!” 

“I don’t fucking care! I overslept and Raven will be here in fifteen minutes!”

“Ooh,” she said with a singsong tone, “is this a date?”

“Don’t you have teeth to brush?” he asked, annoyed.

“That’s a no, then, huh.”

“I wish it were that fucking easy, Clarke,” he shouted over the shower stream.

“Why didn’t you tell me she was coming over? I would have made sure you were up in time! And besides, it isn’t like I wouldn’t have found out anyway. We live in the same house.”

“I don’t know! I didn’t even know she was coming until yesterday.”

“You still could have told me!”

Murphy unlocked the door and poked his head out. “I will not be ready when she gets here. Please entertain her, and _not_ with dumb shit about me. And by the way, if she asks, you told me this show was too intense to watch alone, yeah?”

“Wait, why did you bring me into this?” Clarke cried. Murphy simply slammed the door shut in her face as a response.

He went through his morning routine as quickly as physically possible, and still Raven had been there for twenty minutes by the time he finally came down the stairs into the foyer. “Jeez, Murphy, it’s about time,” she said in lieu of greeting. “Luckily you’ve got a wonderful sister who would do anything for you and kept your lovely guest entertained while you dragged your ass.” 

Behind her, Clarke wore a sickly-sweet grin that told Murphy she’d been up to something in his absence. “What kind of shit did she tell you about me?” he asked begrudgingly.

“Oh, nothing much. Just how you nearly launched me out of the bathroom to get ready this morning,” Clarke said.

“And still you kept me waiting. Tsk, tsk,” Raven said. She shook her head in mock disapproval.

“Hey, uh, Clarke?” She looked to him, feigning innocence. “Wanna get the fuck out?”

“Gladly.” She winked at him. “I’ll be in my bedroom if you need me.”

Once she’d gone, Murphy turned to Raven. “Sorry about that. I, uh, slept through my alarm. Woke up and it was 11:45.”

“You do realize I’m just fucking with you, right? I don’t actually care. Clarke’s my best friend, I don’t mind hanging out with her while I’m waiting for you.”

“Yeah, I know, but still, I didn’t mean to do it.”

“Well yeah, dumbass. Let’s just watch this damn show, huh?”

Murphy nodded dumbly and led her down the hall to the den, where Clarke had graciously already put on Netflix and left a bag of gummy worms on the table for them. He sat at one end of the couch and allowed Raven to pick the amount of space between them, far too afraid of overstepping an unseeable boundary. She, upon seeing the candy, snatched it from the table and curled up beside him, closer than he’d anticipated but (if he was being honest with himself) not as close as he’d hoped.

“So you’ve kind of told me what this show’s about, but you didn’t tell me how you found it,” she said, biting the head off a gummy worm.

“I think I saw one of those sponsored trailers for it on Facebook. Seemed good, so I wanted to try it.” In all honesty, he spent an hour searching related shows to the one they apparently argued over every Wednesday and found it that way, but there wasn’t a way in hell he’d tell her that.

“Let’s hope you’re right. I’ve roped myself into the ‘season a weekend’ deal and if it’s shit, I’m blaming you.”

“You have every right,” he said.

Murphy hit play on the first episode and tried his best to settle in. But he was far too distracted by Raven’s next words to even consider ‘settled’ a word in his vocabulary. “You know, Miles called me this morning and asked if I wanted to get lunch. He got pissed when I told him I already had plans, and then even more pissed when I said they were with you. Got any reason he might hate you so much?”

The words instantly sent him into a minor panic. “Uh, nope, no reason I can think of, nope. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to the guy.” 

_“Certainly it isn’t because of my disgustingly huge crush on you that he can’t possibly have not noticed,”_ he added to himself.

“Huh. Well, that’s weird then. Anyway, that shit isn’t worth my time. He tried to make it a big argument, and I just told him I’m allowed to pick who my friends are and hung up on him. He probably didn’t take it too well. Probably shouldn’t have done that, if I’m honest, but he deserved it.” She took two more gummies out of the bag and offered him one. He took it, if only to use his chewing as an excuse to not reply.

/

They made it through four episodes before Raven’s phone began to ring. Murphy didn’t have to ask who it was, for she answered with, “Babe, I told you I’m busy with Murphy. I can’t hang out today, okay?” Her boyfriend sounded decidedly unimpressed, even muffled in the speaker. He paused the show to let her hear better.

“Miles. I told you before, you can’t tell me who I’m allowed to hang out with! I don’t care if you don’t like him, whatever goddamn reason you have. I do, okay? I’ve known him six years, I haven’t even known you six _months._ Murphy comes first here, and I won’t apologize for that.” She listened for a moment. Murphy could almost make out what he was saying on the other end. “Are you fucking serious right now? Yeah? Okay, fine. Lose my number, then. Bye, Miles.” She ended the call and whipped her phone across the couch, letting out her frustration with a screech.

Murphy, to put it frankly, had no fucking idea how to react to that. After a moment or two of silence, he settled on, “You good, Reyes?”

She huffed. “I can’t fucking _believe_ him, Murphy! He just dumped me because he doesn’t want me to hang out with you and he’s mad that I chose you over him. That’s just-- why the fuck should he even care that much? You heard me say it, I barely even _know_ him. I’ve been friends with you literally since I moved here, that should fucking count for something, yeah?”

Murphy blinked. “Uh, yeah, not that my opinion really matters here, but I’m pretty sure I do count as a human and that your relationship with me does in fact count for something.”

“You see, exactly,” she said with a fervor he hadn’t quite seen on her outside of her talking about technology or science. “You’re really fucking important to me, you know, and for him to just act like that isn’t relevant because _he_ wants to spend time with me and doesn’t think you’re worth my time--which, of course you fucking are--just pisses me off, goddamn it! I’d choose you over most people, and especially dumb assholes like Miles Shaw.”

He couldn’t even bring himself to say anything, just letting Raven’s emotions and the words she was saying wash over him. He’s important to her? She’d choose him over _most_ people? It was almost too much for him to handle all at once.

But still she continued. “You know what? He’s probably just jealous because Lexa for some reason found it appropriate to inform him that I had a huge fucking crush on you all through freshman and sophomore year. That girl has no fucking tact, let me tell you, and I don’t think he needed to know that anyway, let alone from _Lexa_ of all people. I love her, but damn.”

Murphy’s brain quite literally shorted out and he nearly choked on a gummy worm. “Wanna say that again, Reyes?” he said, blinking rapidly as he attempted to process.

Raven seemed to suddenly realize what she’d been saying and flushed slightly. “I, uh, don’t know what you mean,” she stammered.

“I do believe the words were, and I quote, ‘I had a huge fucking crush on you.’”

“That… is a thing I said, yeah.” She refused to look at Murphy.

“Now what, may I ask, changed your mind? It certainly can’t have been Three Names McGee, there,” he said, gesturing at Raven’s phone which had bounced to the floor.

“Stop taking the piss, Murphy,” she said. “You know you dated that girl junior year. What was her name, Emily or something?”

“Emori,” he supplied, “but she and I were only together a couple months.”

“Yeah, well. Little fifteen-year-old Raven saw you with her and got mad, so I did the only thing I could think of to do and I forced myself to get over it,” Raven mumbled.

 _“This is it,”_ Murphy thought to himself, _“kind of a shitty way to go about it really, but if the universe is gonna line up in any way at all, I’m gonna take it.”_

“Alright, Reyes, I’m gonna need you to look at me here. I feel like I’m talking to a wall.” She obeyed, albeit slowly. Murphy was alarmed to note that there were tears in her eyes. He’d never seen her cry before, and he didn’t particularly want to now. He had to get this out, quickly. “Raven, hey. You don’t have to cry.”

She sounded frustrated when she replied, “I don’t cry, damn it. Shut up.”

“Okay, okay. I’m gonna say this to you right now, and I need you to know that I am one hundred percent serious when I tell you that fifteen-year-old Raven may have been able to force herself to get over her crush when I got with Emori, but seventeen-year-old John here? Hasn’t been able to stop thinking about how much I wish what’s his face would just fuck off already.”

“What are you saying, Murphy?”

“I’m saying this. The day I met you, you saved me from a bunch of prepubescent dickheads who thought pushing me around was funny, and I literally thought I owed you my life. I don’t even know if you remember this as clearly as I do, but it’s ingrained in my memory forever.”

“Of course I fucking remember that, you dumbass. How could I ever forget the day I met one of my best friends?” Raven smiled, though tears still rimmed her eyes.

“Okay, so maybe you remember that part. But I know you don’t know how I stared after you that day when you left me in the hallway, and how I couldn’t stop thinking for days about the look in your eyes when you were helping me up. No one had ever shown me they cared that much before, Raven. I thought you were so beautiful, even then.”

“Even when I had side bangs and braces in the seventh grade?”

“To be completely fucking candid here, you just keep getting hotter and hotter, goddamn.”

She laughed, genuine but small. “In eighth grade I wore the same sweatshirt every day for two months and didn’t wash it, and you still thought that?”

He smiled in return. “Are you even listening to me, Reyes? I’m confessing that I’ve had a crush on you for six fucking years and you have the audacity to question your middle school fashion choices?”

“More like questioning your sanity.”

“I have none left. Lost it all when you started dating someone.”

She tilted her head up slightly to make eye contact. “I’m not now. Dating someone, that is.”

“You were five minutes ago, did you forget that part?”

“God fucking dammit, John Murphy, will you just kiss me already? This conversation is weird and I wanna go back to us being assholes to each other.”

And really, who was he to deny her of that? “I never stopped being an asshole, I was just a less sarcastic asshole,” he said.

“Shut up,” she replied, and took it upon herself to close the gap between them instead. Murphy decided that his dumb daydreams were nothing in comparison to the real thing. He also decided that Miles Shaw had seriously fucked himself over by letting her go.

They jumped apart when they heard a squeal from behind them. Clarke stood in the doorway, wide grin across her face. Murphy threw a pillow at her. “You two are the cutest,” she cooed. “I ship.”

“What the hell, Clarke?” he groaned. “You just ruined the moment.”

“I’ve been standing here for like ten minutes, you know. Came down because I heard yelling and thought I may need to mediate. Clearly, I did not need to mediate.”

Raven threw the other couch pillow at her. “Why did you not leave once you realized this?”

She shrugged. “Wanted to see what would happen. You two are fucking adorable. Six years, Murphy, really? Precious.”

“Shut _up,_ Clarke!” he cried. She just laughed.

“I knew this would work out,” she said. And with a flick of her blonde hair, she was gone. 

\- - -

**present day - graduation**

Murphy watches proudly as Raven stands at the podium, giving her valedictorian speech. He knows she deserves everything she has received, including but not limited to the full ride scholarship to her dream school. He listens to her speech, recalling the portions he had helped her smooth out and which parts were unfamiliar to him. All in all--and he may certainly be biased, but he doesn’t care--it is the most eloquent valedictorian speech he has ever heard.

When she says, “Thank you,” following the final words of her speech, he is the first to his feet. Harper, to his left, has tears in her eyes as she claps right along with him. She shoots him a smile as if to say, ‘your girlfriend is amazing,’ and he just nods back. He knows.

After the ceremony, his and Clarke’s parents, Monty’s parents, and Raven’s uncle each take a plethora of photos that Murphy is only half reluctant to smile for. They’ve graduated from this hellhole of a high school, finally, and he’s got friends, a family, and a beautiful girlfriend who all love him. It’s more than ten-year-old John Murphy could have ever hoped for when he moved to Arkadia.

He thinks he’s done pretty well for himself in the long run.

**Author's Note:**

> i very much hope you enjoyed this. i feel rather proud of how it turned out, especially since i had been kind of avoiding this prompt because i didn't know where to start.
> 
> i would absolutely love to hear some feedback, though! as always, please leave kudos and/or a comment if you'd like!
> 
> ~ mikki <3
> 
> (ps yes, smurphy is the best i could do. i feel like middle school bullies are hashtag not creative ok im so sorry)


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